My boyfriend used to take me to Pizza ****
(as we always called it)
after every home basketball game.
We'd fill up on bread sticks,
box the leftover slices,
just so they could sit in the back seat
of his green Chevy jeep
while we made out in the parking lot
with Eric Church's new CD on the stereo.

I told everyone the bruises on my thighs
were just an accident,
when really he pushed me
into the tires
after he had a few or dozen beers
at the party down Bear Run.
He never did like being told
what he shouldn't do.

We'd lay down the seats
and sleep on sweatshirts
with a cooler lid for a pillow
until 10a.m. on a Sunday,
an hour late for mass.
Silently we'd ride
until we'd reach the power plant.
He'd cough and I'd sigh,
quietly singing until we'd reach my driveway.
He never did kiss me
whenever he'd drop me off.

I came back spring break
the following year.
The jeep in his yard with a for sale sign
propped against the hood
and his cell number
written in blue window chalk
just above the windshield wipers.
I saw his little sister
peek behind the curtain
when I knocked on the door,
but no one came to answer.
So I lit a cigarette and drove home
listening to "Springsteen."

I'm bleeding out
Shedding my radioactive tears for you
Wondering as I walk a little tightrope
Between cyanide and happiness
Would it **** you to live and love?
To remove this curse of curves
To spend some time raising dragons
So that the love killer and killer queen
May not be left undefeated and unbroken,
Their stories left unwritten

I wish I were six again
if only to beg and plead
my mother to read me a story before bed.  

I could read on my own when I was six,
but I just wanted to hear another voice say
goodnight
to everything in the little bunny’s room.
I found it funny when my mother said
goodnight to the moon,
and the mush,
and the red balloon.  
It was soothing, relaxing after a long day,
however exhausting a day
in the life of a
six-year-old can be.
I would be on the bottom,
my brother on the bunk above me.  
Mom would stand by the ladder,
using it as a book rest.  
Or we would sit on the floor with her between us,
looking at the pictures as she read.  
The green and orange of the room,
blue and white of the bunny and his pajamas,
the red of the balloon,
colors etched into our minds.

When I was thirteen
and finally moved into my own room,
I considered painting it green
out of respect and admiration
for the book
and now, when I walk at night,
I stare at the moon.

On a Monday I saw a very full moon.  
It looked larger than normal,
brighter too
and I noticed something in the moonlight.  
A painting, attached to some metal box
on the side of the road by liquid nails.
I don’t know why the painting meant anything to me.
It was simple,
a man drinking a cup of tea.  
He was old and haggard, grayed a bit.  
But there was a corner, a solid background.  
A wall behind the tea-drinking man,
bright red,
standing out from the rest of the image.  
I took the painting,
pried it off with the force of memory.
it hangs in my home,
that bright bit of red wall adding
a needed splash of color to
mundane rental property mauve.

Though I wish that splash were green.

The revolver,
to my head,
has one bullet.

Finger steady,
on the trigger,
I can't pull it.

The thoughts racing,
through my head,
around and around.

Head in the clouds,
please pull me down,
so my feet touch the ground.

I have always been addicted to you,
from the day you walked into the room.
Blue dress, blues eyes,
bright as the moonlight.

We kiss under the stars,
and say the world is ours.
Where did those nights go?
No one knows.

The sky,
it grows dark,
the sun hides away.

My eyes,
they grow weary,
memories fade.

As I pull,
on the trigger,
fate rings in my ears.

I smile,
cause I know,
you are somewhere near.

I have always been addicted to you,
from the day you walked into the room.
Blue dress, blues eyes,
bright as the moonlight.

We kiss under the stars,
and say the world is ours.
Where did those nights go?
No one knows.

Stars surround stars with death close by.
Each little star will surely die; amongst other things, so will we.
But we have the power of eternity.
Humans surround the world without guilt
Of ruining the land that he built.
Upon the grass that looks so green.
Are us and them, the world we see.
Below the grass that looks so green
Are things that none have ever dreamed.
So breathe and breathe before you lose hope.
You'll surely die and never know.
How life could be oh so, sacred.
In a world where everything's taken.